APBT Attacks Therapy Dog

I saw on the Dallas news yesterday where two loose pit bulls attacked a blind woman and her therapy dog Sunday morning. She and her trained vision dog (lab) were waiting on her front porch for their ride to church when two pit bulls came from the street and attacked her dog. She covered her dog with her own body and took the attack as well. Many neighbors tried to help by spraying water, honking horns, etc. but nothing helped. The police finally made it along with animal control. The therapy dog, named Ryder, didn't make it. The woman was in the hospital the last I heard. If I heard correctly, the pits did not have collars and were completely unfamiliar to the neighbors. I would assume that Animal Control took the dogs.

I have had an APBT before and she was the best dog in the world. It sickens me to think of people deliberately training their dogs to do these kinds of things to harmless people and their loving pets. They are the ones who give this otherwise splendid breed a bad name!

Yep, it's a huge conspiracy... it's the first thing you learn in journalism school. Newspaper reporters can be fired for reporting a lab attack.

Of course, if a picture comes out and they ARE pit bulls, you can blame bad ownership, or the way they were raised, despite the owner stating they were family pets and had never attacked aggressively before.

Maybe it was just that lady's time to get attacked. Maureen Faibish used pre-destination as a defense. It was fate.

Or, maybe, pit bulls are prone to dog-on-dog aggression and vented that rage to anything in the area. That seems more likely to me.

kiyote, how many dog attacks have been misidentified as pits when it was actually other breeds? It is not something that is made up, it happens ALL the time. ALL dogs can attack and ANY dog can kill but more often then not, the media says pit bull when they do not know. The media can be like bad gossip, by the time it hits t.v. it is so far from what actually happened that you could not tell the two stories were actually supposed to be one. Now, that is not always the case but it does happen alot. Pits are blamed for ALOT that they don't do.

Yes, pits are predisposed to dog aggression, and that is where the poor ownership comes into play, a person should know their breed and how to correctly handle them and do what is nessecary to protect them and everyone else from them.

Chows are naturally protectie and get aggressive in protection if not raised properly. I have had to do ALOT with my dog to make him a good member of society. I do more then alot. I also know what his 'not so favorable' traits are and I have to take precautions with him. He does not like his head touched by strangers, I am on constant watch for any moron who thins they can just walk up to him and pet him. He will run before anything but I know better then to let him get in to that situation. That is MY responsibility. Pit owners should know what precautions to take with their own breed. As well as many of the owners of the dogs that are mistaken for pits daily.

Pitts can be good dogs and they can be bad dogs just like everyother breed. Any animal that has teeth can bite. I do think pitts have a bad rep, I know alot of people who dont like pitts even though they have never been around one.

Then there are people who clame a dog attacks them when it never happend. A few years back the family next door to my grandma came over claming my Dobermin puppy attacked there son taking a large chunk out of his face and said my grandma had to pay 10K for the bills. My grandma camily asked to see the bill he said he didnt have it his wife had it in the car and she was working. She then camily asked to see his son. He said no I dnt want him anywere around your dog. She said first my dog is a minpin not a dobermin puppy second I know for a fact that he never bit your child. The man starts screaming and yelling at her to pay him or he would sue for millions. She then said "My dog is 13 years old, He had a gum problem when he was a puppy and by the age of 2 he had to get his teeth pulled out, He has no teeth at all. Now if you have proof that your son was attacked and that it was my dog I will gladly give you the money" His eyes got big and he said sorry to bother you and walked off. The next day his son was in his back yard throughing rocks at the dog his mom made him come over to say sorry for the rocks. The kid was fine, he had never been attacked and I dont think his wife even knew that her husband had come over demanding we pay him 10K.

Alot of breeds have bad reps. My mother in law hates pitts, rotts, dobermans, and germansheperds because of things she has herd on the news. She has tryed to tel me they are bad dogs and we will sit there and argue for hours about it. For a short time my husband didnt like the breeds because of what his mom had told him but after hearing all the good things I had to say about them (my cusions pitt being the sweetest dog i have ever seen, My uncles rott saving his daughter from being kidnapped, ECT.) he decited his mom was wrong.

the only breed of dog I have not herd of attacking someone is a great dane. Im sure they could kill someone just as well as anyother dog and im sure they have attcked people befor but i have never herd of it happening.

There were pictures shown of each dog independently after they were captured. Being the former owner of a pit bull, I can say that yes, they were definitely pits. I completely agree with the media circus regarding pits. I also agree that the owners/"trainers" of those two dogs are the ones to blame. NOT the breed. As far as it being "the lady's time to be attacked" - that is crap. From all accounts, she was standing on HER front porch with her therapy dog waiting for a ride to church. She did nothing to provoke those animals. She survived, her therapy dog did not. I do believe that God will take us when he sees fit, but I don't believe that we are waiting for our "time" to be attacked by two vicious animals.

Not to be a female dog-- and start crap.... but I find it ironic that Shiggs feels one bit bad about what happend to this lady or her dog, when she is breeding FOR dogs exactly like the one that took out the service dog and injured the blind lady.

Those two pits (and they likely WERE pits) were just game.... maybe they could be added to some 'yard breeding program'.

It is still up to the owners to prevent their dogs from being loose where that could happen. Many people keep dog aggressive dogs but they need to take measures to prevent this. The dogs were loose. This WAS preventable.

Just because she breeds dogs like this does not mean that she does not have the ability to feel sorry for the woman and her dog. C'mon, how are you not trying to start crap?

I knew i was going to get dragged into this. I got ragged on by just about everybody for having my dogs on chains. This is the very reason they are contained like they are. My dogs do not run loose because they can cause serious damage to other animals. People who own pits need to take extra precautions with them to keep them and other people and animals safe. Especially gamebred ones. They are not for everyone. No i dont think the atacking dogs should ever be bred. They should be pts. Any dog that bites a person for no reason should be put down. Not bred, ever. It leads to unstability in the lines. Even if the dog bit someone for a good reason i would have to seriously think long and hard before i bred it. Most likely it would be fixed and never leave my yard.

"Those two pits (and they likely WERE pits) were just game" I havent seen any pics of the dogs so i cant comment on wether they were pits or not. Also you cant determine if they game or not. Some dogs just have bad attitudes. Some are just aggresive. There is a difference between game and aggresive. Who knows the dogs might have even had health issues we dont know about.

Just because i breed gamebred pits doesnt mean i am am a cold blooded heartless person. I

Yes your own dogs may be chained up or whatever (I believe that's a horrible life for a dog to live, but we have already gone through that) but you BREED these animal aggressive dogs and sell them to people, yes you know who's buying them blah blah blah... but ACCIDENTS happen, somone leaves a door open, a dog breaks a chain, somone drops the leash.

It has nothing to do with human aggression.

Displacement aggression happens more often with these "gamebred" dogs.

Hence the reason why i dont sell my pups to anybody who comes looking for one. I realize accidents happen. I have had a few yard accidents of my own. My dogs have never bitten anyone. There is no proof that these dogs were gamebred. No one knows. Maybe the owner. Maybe not. Please dont label them as gamebred if you dont know. Pits already have enough problems.

Because that is how pits are suppose to be. I am breeding them true to thier standard. I also take precautions to make sure my dogs do not get loose. They are on chains and have a 5'5 foot fence around my entire yard. Plus i have an electric fence running along the bottom the middle and at the top of my fence to make sure the dogs dont try to dig out, hit the fence, or jump it. Besides i havent seen anyone walking thier dogs around here since i moved here.

I had to double cheak my APBT standard, but NO WHERE does it say "Pits should try to attack other dogs"

However acording to www.APBTconformation.com it DOES say.

" Handlers at all times MUST and are expected to maintain control of their dogs at all times and dogs must be trained and socialized around other dogs enough that they can be moved through crowded show venues without danger to other dogs. "

And the UKC says

"Because many APBTs exhibit some level of dog aggression and because of its powerful physique, the APBT requires an owner who will carefully socialize and obedience train the dog. "

These registries recognize the problem in the breed, and urge owners to be willing to do the proper socilization and training... chained up in the backyard... I don't think so.

A chained dog is also more likley to bite a person than a housepet... you are asking for disaster.

(or another example) Fila Brasileros were bred to hunt down slaves, and were bred to kill slaves as a form of entertainment. Just because a breed was bred for a certain purpose doesn't mean it shouldn't be toned down in today's modern society. (One should still expect a Fila to be aggressive, NOT as a family pet, but they no longer attack random strrangers.)